Yanukovych won a November 2004 runoff election. He defeated Viktor Yushchenko. Washington backed him. He’s a former Ukraine central bank governor. His wife held US citizenship. She’s a former Reagan and GHW Bush official. Yushchenko favored NATO and EU membership. His campaign prominently featured the color orange. Western media promoted his Orange Revolution.

Viktor Klitschko’s UDAR is sponsored by the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung and Yulia Tymoshenko’s Fatherland Party has ties with Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union. Svoboda which enjoys strong support in the Lviv administrative region in western Ukraine with 38% electoral support has ties with the BNP in the UK and Jobbik in Hungary. Svoboda would have even stronger ties with these and other right-wing parties in the EU were Ukraine to become a, uh, full-fledged EU member. Is it possible that politically conservative and far-right forces in Germany and other countries need Ukraine in the EU over and above consideration for any economic benefits and other impacts that Ukraine’s integration into the EU might have?

When Polish politician Jacek Protasiewicz (Poland is a NATO country), vice-president of the European parliament, agitates the Ukrainian crowds by telling them: “You are part of Europe” – Russians are also Europeans, by the way –, the inquiring mind wonders how many Ukrainians are in a position to make any informed judgements.

For as long as the Washington Consensus (i.e. privatisation of the public sector at bargain prices, dismantling of the welfare state, debt bondage, hedge fund hyenas and zombie banks) dominates European policies, Ukrainians, like all other Europeans, are bound to be exploited: wealth and prosperity for all is not the goal of the current European leadership.

The Orange Revolution was sponsored by the IMF (Washington), the National Endowment for Democracy (Washington), Freedom House (Washington) and Soros’ Open Society Foundations (New York): “Do you know why there is no revolution in Washington? Because there is no US embassy in Washington DC”.

The same leaders who authorize monitoring internet activities and phone conversations of all citizens, CCTV mass surveillance, the arrest of whistleblowers, drone wars, “humanitarian wars”, toxic austerity, the crushing of protests in Bahrain and Palestine, etc.

The best option, for Ukraine, would be to remain neutral and on friendly terms with both Russia and EU. The European Union should do the same with Russia and the United States. This continent deserves better than being a US protectorate.

The agreement proposed by the European Union would destroy Ukraine’s economy, which could not compete with Western European producers after the lifting of protective tariffs. Even the agricultural sector would be in trouble. For EU countries, Ukraine is but another market to conquer.

We must not also forget that Ukraine depends on subsidised gas from Russia while, in Europe, major banks are insolvent, unemployment is on the rise and basic social and civil rights are no longer guaranteed.